Zakynthos islanders in court after implication in false disability claims

The trial of dozens of people on Zakynthos alleged to have been involved in the false certification of islanders as blind to allow them to claim disability payments began on Friday in a misdemeanors court on the Ionian island.

The scandal broke in the summer of 2011, at the peak of Greece?s debt crisis, leading the Social Security Foundation (IKA) to order a recheck of 338 people claiming disability benefits on the island.

Of the 338 islanders, 146 did not come forward.

Of the 221 who were checked, only 39, or just under 20 percent, were found to have some level of visual impairment.